Jodi Rennebu-Test: Role-player, gamer drew people together

An Edgewater High School graduate and Orlando native, she died June 20 after cancer spread to her spinal fluid. She was 35.

"She was my lady, the love of my life," said her husband, Steve Test, who first met and befriended her while they played Dungeons & Dragons together when she was a teenager. He was seven years older, so he waited for her, and they began dating when she was a high-school senior.

"There are some people who are lucky enough to have an epic love story in their lives. We were that couple," he said.

"I can't think of anyone whose imagination comes even close to hers, except maybe the man she married," said Shawn Tomlinson of Orlando, who role-played with Rennebu-Test on and off for 20 years.

For example, she was able to convincingly play a wide range of characters, including a childlike kleptomaniac race in Dungeons & Dragons. "It was extremely difficult to pull off the personality. She was the only person I know who was capable of doing it," he said.

Before getting sick, she and her husband helped write a book that laid the foundation for a new role-playing game. With a small group, they worked to promote it for about three years, selling the book at conventions and online. But it ultimately didn't take off.

Her interests included a wide variety of TV shows, movies, musicals, card games and books, said best friend Christine Pham, who met Rennebu-Test in kindergarten.

They watched and sang songs from the musical "Wicked" together.

"She was the Elphaba to my Glinda," Pham said. "I was the bouncy, obnoxious blonde. She was the serious, more misunderstood one."

After her first diagnosis of cancer about three years ago, Rennebu-Test didn't let it define her. She wore a purple wig and showed off "chemo Barbie," a doll with chopped-off hair and a open-backed dressing gown that Christine had sent her.

After she recovered, she lived life with new vigor, Test said.

She planned a romantic, 10-day trip to Seattle that she kept a complete surprise until the couple was on the plane.

And she continued to connect people — both online and in person.

She first met Barb Wright, a government employee in Victoria, British Columbia, within a role-playing game called Renaissance Kingdoms. They became so close that Wright flew to see Rennebu-Test when she got sick. Rennebu-Test later visited Wright in Canada.

"Jodi brought a lot of people together, just by being herself," Wright said.

She was remembered Saturday at both a memorial service and a gathering at the Cloak & Blaster gaming pub in East Orlando, a space that Jodi and her husband supported and promoted. Jodi never got to visit, too ill when it opened its doors in recent weeks.

In addition to her husband, Rennebu-Test is survived by brother Steve Rennebu and parents Dana and Mary Rennebu, all of Orlando, and other family members.